Midnight Encounters
by Bainaku
Summary: Starfire, troubled by a recurring noise in the Titans Tower at night, sets out to investigate and ends up discovering more than she originally intended.  Heavy hints at Star x Raven paring.  Critiques and comments appreciated.  Now updated and finished!
1. Upon Dreaming

**Warning: **This story hints heavily at a Star/Raven pairing. It's not kissy-kissy or full of gal-on-gal action. If you don't like that sort of thing, the solution is simple—read no more from this point. I'm not trying to bash other pairings with what I've written here; in fact, there's quite a possibility I like other pairings as much as I like this one. To find out, you might ask—I don't bite. I say again: this story hints _heavily _at a Star/Raven pairing. If you don't like that, read no more.

**Disclaimer: **I don't own Teen Titans. I just write about them, because I am a rabid fangirl and I can. So there. Nyeh!

**Midnight Encounters**

There it was again. That… that _sound_.

Starfire clenched her jaw and squeezed her eyes shut, trying to ignore it. It happened at least once a week, this exchange between the darkness and the Tamaranian teen: the agonized flicker of noise in the tower, only just loud enough to touch her ears, her heart, her soul, stirring the hairs on the back of her neck to wary attention. It was like the last sibilant murmur of a dying thing, she thought, and it scraped mercilessly against the inside of her skull: the rattling hiss of Cyborg's tool against the ice on his car's windshield on January mornings. It wounded her; it made her draw her legs up beneath her chin; it made her want to hug herself; it made her want to sing so she wouldn't hear it anymore, to pitch her voice higher and higher until it cracked and bled and broke on the ice, because at least it would be better, yes, she thought: it would be better than hearing that noise.

It was not a sound whose owner sought comfort. Starfire, ever the kind soul, had gone looking for it before; the first night it had touched her ears, she'd drifted through the tower with wide eyes and trembling hands, thinking that someone must be hurt, someone must be _dying_: oh, but no. She'd found Beast Boy asleep on the couch, his fingers buried in a bowl of cold popcorn and his head tipped back, the tips of his fangs glistening in the moonlight. His snores echoed in the main room, and the station he'd been watching had long since gone off the air. Starfire remembered turning off the television, just to be sure, but the sound persisted, cutting through the darkness in sorrowful, staggered intervals.

The others had been asleep in their beds, or so she assumed. She felt no need to enter Robin's room; she could sense him breathing and growling and thrashing beneath his sheets, muttering occasionally, chasing villains even in dreams. She had felt the hum of power from Cyborg's chambers that indicated his sleep cycle, but drifted to his door and opened it anyway, gazing within: he was recharging, dormant, his human eye closed and the mechanical orb glazed over. She heard him creak as he moved, his fingers twitching, and she left quickly, loath to disturb him or concern him unreasonably.

By the time she'd reached Raven's door, the sound was but a memory, a feeling like cold sweat between her shoulderblades. She'd rested a hand on the thick silver barricade, and remembered having pondered knocking, opening the door, going inside; after all, she thought, Raven likely only kept it locked sometimes. However, with the tower silent all around her and no valid reason to enter the only other female Titan's room, Starfire hadn't been able to see the sense in risking death. More than a little befuddled, she'd returned to her room and bed. No one else ever mentioned hearing the sound, not even when it roused her again three days later, and once more the following week, a pitiful keen in the corners and corridors of Titans Tower, faint and fleeting and tortured.

Starfire, however, hadn't gone without mentioning it to her friends. As a stranger to most of Earth's traditions and daily happenings, she'd grown used to asking questions and wasn't ashamed to voice her concerns. Her friends, though they laughed at her phrasing sometimes or feigned embarrassment at her bluntness, were always kind enough to answer her as clearly as possible.

"My dearest companions," she'd asked them the morning after hearing the sound the first time, resisting the urge to clap her hands in congratulations as Beast Boy flipped a pancake and managed not to get it stuck on the ceiling, "is it most normal for sounds of painful death to echo in the halls at night on Earth?" The word 'death' stuck in Starfire's mouth like the delightful candy of cotton, only not quite delightfully, but she'd managed.

The other Titans at the table had given her bewildered looks. Cyborg, however, had turned after a few seconds to prod Beast Boy in the side, and the green teen scowled at the larger boy as Cyborg chuckled, "She heard you snorin', BB. It's okay, Star; we all do that sometimes. Beast Boy just manages to sound particularly idiotic in the process."

"It was not this snoring you speak of, I do not think," Starfire argued, but her protest had been lost to the swirling cacophony of sudden noise: Beast Boy howling in complaint and despair as his pancake, having been flipped again the moment of the unfortunate, offending prod, landed not in the pan, but on the floor; Cyborg, roaring with laughter at Beast Boy's misfortune. Robin, who had been reaching for Starfire's hand out of concern, snatched his fingers back and yelled at the other two boys to shut it, please. Raven, ever the quiet sort, had merely rolled her eyes, picked up her bowl of Cheerios, the book she'd been reading whilst eating said Cheerios, and trotted out toward the couch, seeking solace from the idiocy of other mortals. Even if those mortals happened to be her friends as well.

Starfire had simply thought it best not to ask again.

She regretted it now, and dragged her sheets over her head, letting herself be surrounded and swallowed by the soft, sweet darkness of her covers. She curled her toes and wished fervently that the sound wouldn't come again: that it would please, please just let her sleep; that it would go away, fade into oblivion and let her dream her dreams of bright things and victory and sunrises, etching golden wings of welcome onto the horizons of future mornings. She wished so hard and so furiously that she tired herself out with it, and was just beginning to relax once more, the tension melting from the arched line of her spine, when the sound brushed her ears again, the phantom touch of a cold, unwelcome lover.

It was a little louder this time and, Starfire thought with drowsy concern as she sat up, fisting her hands in the sheets, more plaintive. And it was lasting longer than usual—it had tended to fade, the past two times she'd listened to it, within four or five minutes. This time it had gone on longer than ten, and there was something subtlety different about the pitch of the sound besides. Starfire rubbed the tanned shell of her ear and tipped her head slightly, sucking a long breath: and then she held it, listening. Waiting.

The blood pounded in her temples, slow and intent, and white fireworks of desperation began to explode behind her eyes after two and a half minutes of throbbing, breath-holding silence. Biting her lips from the inside, Starfire persisted as long as she was able, and opened her mouth to inhale at last when the sound came again: a long, low croon, almost weepish in nature, that ended in something like a sob. Green light soaked the room as Starfire bristled, nostrils flaring and eyes aglow; she flung the sheets away and flew toward the door, fully intent now. She wasn't sure if she was looking for danger or going to the aid of some hapless creature within the walls of Titans Tower, but she knew one thing for certain: something, someone, somewhere was crying. Piteously. In anguish. She could very nearly smell the salt.

She went to Robin's room first, driven by instinct and caring, but he remained asleep even as she hovered over him, her face anxious. She hurried next to Beast Boy's lair: it could only be called that, so scattered with clothes, half-gnawed rubber toys, and defunct gaming controllers. Curled in a fetal position in a nest of what might have been, at some point, sheets, the changeling twitched a pointed ear at Starfire and drooled, stretching out a leg in the process. Starfire, unable to help the curiosity that was so much a part of her, noticed that he was wearing shorts of the boxers peppered with little green fire hydrants before she sped away again.

Cyborg's room, humming just the same as it had been so many days before, offered Starfire empty relief—the half-human Titan himself wasn't crying, but the source of the noise wasn't present in his chambers either. Feeling tears of frustration beading in the corners of her eyes, the Tamaranian girl drifted back through the silent halls to hover in front of Raven's door, splaying her hands on the cold, silver surface. Her fingers trembled in a mix of indecision and nerves; adrenaline coursed through her veins with every firm drumbeat of her heart, and Starfire could see her reflection in the door, her face contorted with anxiety and distress. The green glow of possible energy bolts in her eyes had begun to fade, three out of four friends having been found safely asleep. And the fourth… well, the fourth was known to be able to take care of herself, and to snarl at anyone who attempted to show her kindness.

Starfire didn't think Raven would be very appreciative of the Tamaranian barging into her room in the middle of the night. There was nothing more unnerving or soul-shattering to Starfire than to be on the receiving end of one of Raven's glares: they were worse than Robin's frowns, than Cyborg's groans of, "Aww man, Star!" or, even, than Beast Boy's puppyishly liquid gazes of confused puzzlement and hurt. Raven's glares were cold, biting, bitter: damning, condemning, but never resentful. Disappointed. They soaked the happiness and sunlight right out of Starfire, leaving her feeling bleak and empty and somehow depleted, thoroughly unsatisfied with her existence. It often took her several hours to recover from a glare from Raven, and when she _did _recover, it was usually her first priority to seek out the blue-cloaked girl to apologize to her. Sometimes, Raven apologized back, or looked surprised to even be encountering Starfire over such a matter; sometimes gave the girl a distracted wave and continued reading, or meditating, or doing Raven-ish things, and Starfire left her with the knowledge that things were all right again.

Starfire found herself most unwilling to receive a Raven glare so late in the evening. Worrying her lower lip between her teeth until it stung, she sighed and pulled her hands back from the door, clenching them momentarily in the pink fabric of her nightshirt. Her bare legs were beginning to prickle: she felt uncomfortable, floating in midair before the other female Titan's door, bathed in darkness and cold to boot. Her toes were freezing. Resolving that she would simply go back to bed and bring up the issue of the sound again in the morning, pancake incident or no pancake incident, Starfire released her nightgown, letting it flutter down around her knees, and turned away from Raven's room.

She had time to float two feet in the opposite direction before the sound slid sodden fingertips around the tip of her ear and pulled—but it wasn't just a sound any longer, oh no. It was a cry, a sob, a wail muffled by walls and agony and an unwilling soul, and Starfire spun around in midair, her brilliant green eyes fixed upon Raven's door. It was coming from within, the heartrending noise, and the Tamaranian's resolve had never been stronger. Speeding forward, she ran her fingers over the touchpad next to the door, cursing softly in her guttural native language when the thing refused to budge. Summoning the smallest emerald energy bolt into her fingers that she was able, Starfire thrust her palm against the touchpad and prayed for a simple short circuit, hoping that she would not, in her excitement, allow her still-expanding powers to relieve Raven of her room's main wall.

Thankfully, the touchpad melted beneath Starfire's hand and the door, defeated, _schlupped _upward with only the faintest of hisses. Starfire peered into the darkness beyond, extinguishing the glow of her fingers immediately—she hoped she'd be able to see moderately well once her eyes adjusted, because she wasn't keen on blinding Raven the instant she stepped inside. Rubbing again the hem of her nightgown between warm thumb and forefinger, the girl eased into the dark chasm, jerking upright in the air when the door gave a dissatisfied rumble and _schlupped _closed behind her. She heard the locking mechanism slide into place, and felt something like a pang of fear when she realized that she was very likely trapped in a room with her fellow Titan.

Starfire wasn't afraid of Raven—respectful as much as possible, of course, and wary sometimes, but never did she look upon the gray-skinned adolescent as an entity to be feared. Raven, however cynical, quiet, and faintly morbid, was Starfire's friend, but Starfire felt that she could think of _much_ better situations to occupy than those involving Raven, herself, and four constricting walls. Not that she couldn't blast her way out, of course: Starfire just didn't believe that Raven would forgive her easily for dismantling her room.

Squinting, the concerned redhead looked slowly around Raven's room. She'd been inside once or twice before, but she'd never stayed long enough to really examine things: partially because she'd been concerned with other matters, and partially because Raven had never seemed interested in letting her have an involved look around. She noted with stunted interest the statues and sculptures of tentacled things, of demonic creatures with multiple jagged eyes that crouched or clawed or skulked or leapt, forever frozen in time in positions none too friendly. The walls were bare, for the most part; a bookcase absolutely crammed with novels, tomes, volumes decorated one, but Starfire could spot no posters. There wasn't a window in the room either, and no moonlight as such; the Tamaranian winced as she drifted forward and snagged a naked toe on the edge of something sharp. Looking down, she recognized the dim, rectangular outline of a covered mirror, and frowned at it disapprovingly. Why have a mirror if only to cover it? And, furthermore, why have a mirror and leave it so far out from the wall, where unsuspecting hovering visitors might run into it?

Starfire, after leveling the mirror with her stern gaze, turned her gaze to the far corner of the room. As a being who functioned on stimuli and emotions from others, Starfire had learned to grasp for even the smallest of external reactions when in Raven's presence—the hooding of violet eyes, the twitch of a sardonic smile, the flicker of fingers, the ever so slight tremor in the calm, collected voice. Now, however, she had no need to grasp at all. She felt the hairs on the back of her neck stir again as she stepped closer to the long, dark object that was Raven's bed: she could hear the other girl panting faintly, twisting in the sheets with slow, deliberate movements; she could smell the salt of her tears, quiet and pungent and bitter; she could see the slick shine of moisture on Raven's lips as they parted, as the girl tipped her head back with all the languid misery of the dying and moaned.

Starfire felt her soul blaze with a mix of pity, protectiveness, and anxious concern. Raven was lying in a cocoon of warped sheets, settled more in the middle of the bed than near the top; her pillow rested, not at all dented by the recent presence of a skull, at least a foot above the girl's dark, scattered locks. She was covered from the collar down; her bare shoulders, however, startled Starfire, who had never seen Raven without her cloak and accompanying black leotard. Another cursory examination of the room revealed that very garment to be hanging on a hook just above the end of the bed. The Tamaranian watched for a moment, unable to help it, as Raven kneaded her fingers restlessly in her sheets. The normally stoic face was alive with emotion—the smooth slate brow was creased in what seemed to be distressing indecision, and Starfire eased forward at last when Raven's lips twitched, her eyes shuddering beneath their lids.

She took a seat between Raven's head and the unoccupied pillow, reaching out after the slightest pause to gingerly rest her fingers upon the dark head. Raven rebelled faintly against the touch, turning away from Starfire's palm once, twice, three times, relenting at last with another exhalation that sounded, the Tamaranian thought, suspiciously like a sob. Her locks slid, straight and silken, beneath Starfire's fingertips, and the redhead stifled a gasp as her entire hand began to tingle, her nerves protesting in screaming unison beneath her skin.

Touching Raven was like touching ice.

Black ice on the road, stealing the traction from the wheels of Cyborg's car for a heartstopping second, an invisible fiend; glazed ice on the sidewalk in front of Titans Tower, menacing to even the surest boot; thin ice on the pond in the middle of the nearby city, thin ice that gave way and broke, cracked, shattered, splintered beneath skates and Starfire was falling, falling through the surface into a wet, dark, unending chasm, sinking like a stone despite all attempts to fly out, fly free, fly true, away from the suffocating, mind-numbing dark of the soul Raven's soul she is so cold oh my friend my dearest friend you are frigid you are afraid you are dying you are _so cold_—

Starfire jerked away despite herself, her own cheeks wet with tears now. The darkness smelled like salt all around, a combined frost and fire, and the Tamaranian lowered her head after a moment to look at Raven through blurring vision. "Oh," she whispered before she remembered that Raven was asleep, Raven would be mad—no, _furious _if she woke up to find Starfire in her room, on her bed, sobbing over her like a little girl. Clapping her hands over her mouth, the Titan choked back her startled sorrow and pondered her options.

She could leave. There was a chance Raven would never know she'd come at all—and then she remembered the door's touchpad, damaged by her own hand, and wondered how she would explain that to the girl come morning, provided she managed to get out without making a racket. Shaking her head, Starfire clenched her fingers around her jaw and ruled out that option. She had a certain grace about her, she knew, but it came and went as fleetingly as summer showers on the Tamaranian meadows—there was no way she'd manage to get back to the door without rousing Raven.

And the other option, of course: she could stay.

Gritting her teeth, Starfire decided that there was really only _one _option, thank you very much, and it was indeed to stay. She could not, would not leave her friend like this; she refused to let Raven, however much the girl might be angry with her later for it, drown in the destitute murk of her own dreams. Nightmares. Whatever they were.

Turning slightly, Starfire extended a hand to the other Titan and carefully, carefully brushed the tendrils of violet hair away from her icy face. Raven winced and gave a weak stir, brow quivering, and Starfire, biting her lip for a moment, at last decided that words couldn't hurt.

"My friend," she began, and stopped immediately, startled at the hoarse grate of her words. She swallowed and licked her lips, cheeks flushed with embarrassment, and tried again. "My friend," she half-whispered, half-murmured, "please do not be afraid. Do not shy from my hand. It is I, Starfire, and I… I am here to proceed with the giving of comfort."

Starfire watched Raven's face carefully, keeping contact between them to a minimum lest her system rebel again and draw her down into the depths of suffocating darkness—she could be no help to Raven there, no, not in the world bereft of sunlight and air and life. Not in the world beneath the ice.

Having gone still under the outer influence of touch and voice, Raven rested in a moment of stillness and silence. Her tears, though sluggish before, eased to a halt, held at the corners of her eyes; her wrinkled brow smoothed over; and her lips parted the tiniest bit to allow the passage of soft, ragged breaths, in and out and almost helpless, Starfire thought. She slid her hand from the straying strands of Raven's hair to the girl's cheek, running her thumb in concern along the pale gray swell to smooth away the moisture, the salt, the sadness, worrying that Raven must have been fighting without them at some recent point, since the skin seemed bruised and puffy beneath her eyes.

Starfire could not recall a time when her teammate had looked so frail and vulnerable as she did now.

Not allowed to ponder long, Starfire jerked in startlement as Raven gave a quiet, nonsensical murmur and tipped her head upward into the strange touch, into the gentle warmth. Her brow furrowed again, and her lips quivered; Starfire opened her mouth to speak, but fell silent when the girl lying on the bed before her thrashed once, violently, in the sheets, digging an elbow into the mattress to turn herself onto her stomach. Eyes sliding open, the violet-blue depths glazed with pain, fatigue, hope, the gray-skinned girl dragged herself to Starfire with a whimper. The black spines and spires of glacial energy so common to Raven's outline in battle flickered now about the redheaded Titan's thighs and hips, snaking tendrils of frost along the surface of pink nightgown, tanned legs, clenched abdomen.

"Please, my friend!" Starfire hissed, twisting her fingers in Raven's sheets and squeezing her eyes closed. As gently as possible, she settled her free hand on the curve of the other girl's skull between nape of neck and ear, letting her palm slide over the slick locks once more. Her insides were crystallizing, she knew it—turning to stone, congealing into rock, into slate, into twisted shapes like the rest of the statues in the room, but she could not pull away, she must not pull away, Raven was her friend her friend in trouble sad cold freezing frigid lost trapped beneath the ice dreaming of the sunset dreaming of darkness dreaming of death oh Raven so _cold—_

Starfire felt cloth bunch at her hip, felt a sudden weight of damp coldness along the rise of her thigh. The sensation of frost spreading throughout her body, fading fast, remained unpleasant but bearable, and she drew in a relieved, shuddering breath before she opened her eyes and tipped her head down, fully expecting to be on the receiving end of the worst Raven glare yet.

Raven's head was in her lap, one arm further extended to curl and clench at her friend's pink-clothed hip. The other limb was wrapped loosely around the Tamaranian, small fingers splayed in the small of Starfire's back. Cheek resting on available thigh, Raven exhaled and pressed the back of her skull to Starfire's abdomen and hand, seeking warmth, comfort, solace. Seeking the light above the surface of the ice.

Starfire squeaked as the blood in her toes raced through her body's webwork of veins, every platelet struggling to reach her face first. She knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that her cheeks were glowing with all the ferocity of a traffic light on red, and, even more embarrassingly, that there was absolutely nothing she could do about it. Listening to the hum of her pulse in her eyes and swallowing against the sudden lump in her throat, the redheaded Titan tipped her head and began to comb her fingers through Raven's hair, making soft shushing noises when she found the breath in her body to do so.

Raven quivered against her for several minutes, the tense lines of her body slowly ebbing into the shallow, relaxed curves of one dreamlessly sleeping. Starfire watched, her eyes anxious, as the furrow in the pale girl's brow began to smooth itself into oblivion. The tears were gone now, a faint memory, a wisp of salt on the gray cheeks that Starfire wiped away with two gentle swipes of a broad, warm thumb. It was with a rising gladness that the Tamaranian girl cradled her friend's head in her lap, the dark skull pressed flush to the insipid fabric of her nightgown. Every breath Raven gave the room was warmer, brighter, the essence of life having hidden in the shadows; each exhale was more stable than the last, and Starfire exulted to feel her friend growing strong again in her arms.

As the minutes ticked by, molding into hours, and Raven's fingers loosened in the cloth at Starfire's hip, the Tamaranian felt drowsiness tugging treacherously at her eyelids. Though she wasn't particularly comfortable, she _was _warm; the darkness pressed her soothingly now, tempered by heat and fatigue, tempting for the lack of Raven's piteous cries. Starfire yawned, gave her friend's skull a last affectionate caress and dropped her chin onto her chest, gazing down along the curve of the opposing pale face through the closing gap between her eyelashes. She felt distantly as though she were dreaming, yes, because she found in her lap the impossible, the stunning, the beautiful: the sigma of friendship, written in the ice by the first questing golden rays of the sunrise, and before she could sit up, before she could lean in to more closely study the phenomenon, the darkness swirled in to claim her, and Starfire succumbed to the tender grasp of sleep.

In the darkness, Raven was smiling.

**Notes: **I'm not certain as to whether or not I'm going to continue this or leave it as is. I feel that I have the capacity to continue, but it depends entirely on whatever mood I happen to be in tomorrow, the next day, and so on. What do _you _think I should do? Do you have any advice? Critiques? Comments? Fluffy hats? I'll be happy to steal the—I mean, listen to you.

Thanks for reading!

—Bainaku


	2. Upon Waking

**Warning: **This story hints heavily at a Star/Raven pairing. If you've read the first part, you know that it's not super kissy-kissy or full of gal-on-gal action. Granted, this second part is a bit more suggestive than the first, but I don't think it's that bad. If you don't like this sort of thing, the solution is simple—read no more from this point. I'm not trying to bash other pairings with what I've written here; in fact, there's quite a possibility I like other pairings as much as I like this one. To find out, you might ask—I don't bite. I say again: this story hints _heavily _at a Star/Raven pairing. If you don't like that, read no more.

**Disclaimer: **I don't own Teen Titans. I just write about them, because I am a rabid fangirl and I can. So there. Nyeh!

**Notes Before You Read: **Raven's room as I've described it in this fic might not be accurate to the series. That's all right—who's looking that closely? Raven can redecorate. Also, in the episode _Nevermore_, Raven is depicted as having various color-cloaked versions of herself inside her mind, each of which represents a different part of her personality. I use those color-cloaked gals here, and I call them Sentiments for lack of a better expression. I hope you enjoy the fic!

**Midnight Encounters: Upon Waking**

_I can feel the world turning beneath me_, thought Raven. She knew she was stirring from sleep, and it was a ritual for her to feel out her surroundings as she did so. Every morning, she documented the process as her consciousness rose to the fore to greet and embrace the ambience of the waking world, a kind of meditation for the earliest of the early hours. It helped her smooth her soul over for the coming day, a glass ocean beneath a pale white sky, buried under even the lowest layers of her most primitive instincts.

_I can feel my nightgown clinging to my legs. It's tangled again_. She shifted slightly, scrubbing her cheek over her pillow without opening her eyes. _I can feel my heartbeat echoing in the air around me_, she continued methodically. _I can feel my hair touching my face. I can feel my mirror glowing in the coldness of the morning—it's moved. _She allowed herself an internal frown._ Perhaps I nudged it last night without realizing_… She paused, extending her senses curiously to run invisible fingers over the mirror, and her heart skipped half a beat in relief: it was still covered.

_I can feel the whispers of the words in my books, _she resumed. _I can feel the shelves beneath the books sighing as the day begins. I can feel the sunlight on my face. I… wait. I can _what?

Raven did not only feel the gears in her brain grind to a halt, oh no—she heard them squeak and scream and cry out in sudden protest, and the hot stench of burning rubber rolled about in her upper nasal cavities. She tasted copper, a sure sign that she'd pulled a mental muscle; she swallowed in reflex before she drew in a calming breath and tried to relax, tried to ignore the fact that she could feel dawn, sunlight, warmth on her cheeks, nose—filtering between her eyelashes like tiny questing fingers, caressing her lips and jaw and chin. She tried to ignore the fact that she could feel the sunrise bidding her welcome when there was no window in her room.

Her rising ritual forgotten for the moment, Raven drew in her power and promptly sent it out again, tendrils of imperceptible sensory. She ran loving phantom hands along her bookcase, noting with satisfaction that nothing was out of order there; she grazed unseen fingertips over the spines of the volumes upon volumes on the shelves, allowing herself time to trace the occasional favored title, author, seam. She paused before the touchpad on the door and allowed herself another inner frown, this one darker than the former—something was wrong with it. The hum behind the gears wasn't the same as before, oh no. They weren't running smoothly. They were grinding, fretting, worrying against one another, and Raven checked the locking mechanism, brow furrowing in puzzlement when she realized that the door, despite having been tampered with, was still perfectly closed and sealed.

_Someone tried to get into my room and screwed up the touchpad, _she concluded, and stifled a sigh of mixed exasperation and fury. _Wonderful. Doesn't anyone understand the concept of knocking?_

She combed her room to the edge of her bed with an intangible touch made to waver by the warmth and comfort of the early morning, achieving reassurance when she came to understand that nothing was out of place or amiss. Scrubbing her cheek again over her pillow, Raven permitted herself the tiniest of yawns into the cloth and inhaled to follow, satisfied—no one would dare to enter her room at night.

The lingering stink of burning rubber in Raven's nostrils was replaced by more familiar smells: her shampoo and conditioner, faint vanilla incense—a present from Beast Boy; she'd only burned it once, and ever since she'd been unable to get the scent out of her things—and the zealous, amiable cinnamon aroma of Starfire. Raven froze, breath held tensely in her lungs, before she inhaled again. Oh yes, there it was: the fragrance of lightly simmering vapors, of the holidays and warmth and friendship and candy and sweet things, so encompassing, so gentle, so… so _close_.

_Starfire's in my room, _Raven thought, and amended milliseconds later, _no. I already checked everything else. Starfire's in my bed_.

A blush clawed its way vigorously into Raven's cheeks, and the Titan bit her lips from the inside, trying to sort through the sudden rush of emotions to grasp those with which she was more accustomed. She found anger easily, and frustration, but stalled upon confronting confusion, disbelief, acceptance, _enjoyment_—what on Azarath was going on? Starfire's presence wasn't normally so unsettling!

Then again, Starfire's presence wasn't normally so near either. Not this early in the morning—not in her _bed_.

Settling for a combo of anger and disbelief, Raven opened her eyes and mouth, fully intending to confront Starfire about the entire thing. She was ready to cut out the Tamaranian's heart with words, and she knew it, tasted it, hated it and loved it all the same—she was ready to tell Starfire just how she felt about nightly intruders, and she clenched her jaw resolutely as red-cloaked Fury seethed and boiled and frisked about behind her eyes.

Raven found herself staring out at her room. The edge of her vision, occupied by something pink—_She brought a blanket or something, _Raven surmised distractedly—fuzzed and prickled as she focused on the curve of her arm, pressed to her cheek and thrust forward. Her fingers were curled around her pillow which, she noticed, was feeling oddly solid this morning. Making a sound of aggravation low in her throat, Raven lifted her head and looked down, and blushed so hard that the paint on her walls, strict gray all around, began to shrivel and crack and peel.

Her pillow was Starfire.

_Oh God, how embarrassing, _sniffed red-cloaked Fury, cheeks fast becoming the same shade as her choice of clothing, and turned with a disgusted shudder to flee to the dark, dangerous corners of Raven's mind, intent on lounging with the more vicious instincts while Raven herself had her shocked, sugary moment. With her angry motivation gone, Raven floundered in the sea of other emotions as she gazed down at Starfire's lap, her eyes wide and her words—oh, and she'd had so many!—fleeing in tandem behind her rationality. Her cheeks were reservoirs for blood—that was their only functional purpose. Why had she never known before?

Raven swallowed hard and tipped her head up, her eyes following the line of Starfire's hip—and heaven help her, she was _clinging _to it!—to her side, to her ribs, outlined beneath the pale pink nightgown. She stalled upon sighting the lace hem at the collar of Starfire's garment, resisting the urge to cringe, before she found the other Titan's face, chin pillowed on chest, normally cheery features lax under the comforting film of sleep. Her hair was scattered in shifting crimson curls over her forehead, obscuring the small reddish dots that served as the girl's eyebrows; Raven could see Starfire's eyes shifting jerkily beneath their lids, her lashes quivering in sleep. Though her mouth hung open slightly, the Tamaranian had managed to keep from drooling or shaming herself otherwise.

Placing her free hand on the mattress between Starfire's knees, Raven slowly began to ease herself away from her fellow Titan, hissing softly as a conquering feeling of pins and needles evolved in her torso from breast to bicep to navel. She tensed the dangerously wobbling limb, thinking that it would be shameful to end up plunging back to Starfire's lap so ungracefully, but grouched aloud nevertheless as her elbow gave a treacherous, complaining crack, "Ouch!"

She immediately regretted the unconscious decision to vocalize the ailment, feeling and hearing through empathy the slumber bubble around Starfire _pop_. Raven jerked her head up, hissing in horror as Starfire emitted a sound like a croon, brought her jaws together, and pursed her lips, the skin at the corners of her eyes crinkling into tanned crow's feet. The dark-headed Titan, still sprawled over her lap, was unable to tear her gaze from Starfire's face; even red-cloaked Fury, sulking about beneath Raven's subconscious, tipped each of her glowing eyes to the fore, curious to see just how vulnerable the Tamaranian girl looked first thing in the morning.

_Oh, no need for a window—the light's in her eyes, _came the murmur from behind the strongest Sentiment. Fury pricked an ear. Yellow-garbed Intelligence, emerging from between the instincts of Fight and Flight, took a seat next to Fury and adjusted her glasses with a minute twitch of her fingertips. Her gaze, just as brilliant as the clothes in which she moved, affectionately combed over the picture of the waking Starfire in Raven's mind's eye; her smirk was knowing, certain, cocky, and waving her hand, she summoned a bowl of popcorn, digging in happily.

Fury looked over, all four eyes disapproving. _I'll ream you from throat to crotch, _she snarled softly, _if you get any of that on my couch._

Intelligence crossed her legs and boldly settled the bowl of popcorn in the divot of the cushions between them, turning her head to smile gently at her slightly more vicious counterpart. _Surely you would, _she agreed, and reached to take another liberal fistful of the buttered kernels. _And you would be without a mind. Imagine, no more rationality!_

Fury snorted and grinned a malicious grin, though her slanted gaze dropped to focus on the bowl of popcorn. _Anger is not, _she scoffed, _supposed to be rational._

_Yes, well, give Raven a lobotomy from the inside out and see how well she expresses _any _emotion. Even you, her most favorite of favorites. _Intelligence's voice mixed tenderness and sarcasm, and she twitched her glasses again as Fury lifted her head to look at her companion Sentiment.

_Are you mocking me, Intelligence?_

_Not you, per se. Your claims of violence upon my person, yes. You'd never hurt me—would you, Fury? _Intelligence fluttered her eyelashes behind her thin lenses, muffling a laugh as Fury blanched and reached for the popcorn, refusing to offer further comment.

Raven, completely aware of but unable to do anything about the soft war between her emotions, gazed up into Starfire's face and tried to remember to breathe. The Tamaranian was looking at her, looking into Raven's eyes and soul and heart, her lips parted the tiniest bit and her head tipped to the side in the manner of all things curious. Starfire was awake and perfectly aware of Raven's agonizing indecision and _God_, why couldn't Raven be mad at her? Biting her lips from the inside until she tasted copper once more, the dark-headed Titan tried to find within herself the usual seething mass of violent, volatile emotions—and she succeeded. They roiled beneath the surface of her soul, waiting to be tapped and used and manipulated—waiting to tear, destroy, to rend flesh from bone and to rip happiness from any smile. Waiting for another instance, another situation, another hour, day, week, month. Raven could not unearth, in any fold of her being, the desire to harm or to say a harsh word to Starfire, not now, not gazing up into the emerald sunrise of the Tamaranian's eyes. Not when she could see all the world's hope gleaming within each viridian orb.

_You're a big softie, you know that? _Intelligence teased Fury. She leaned over to poke the other Sentiment in the ribs, her smile growing softer by the second. _I thought for sure that you'd spur Raven to yell at her, at least._

Fury gave Intelligence a withering look, quite an easy task for one with four perpetually slanted eyes, before she shrugged and lobbed a piece of popcorn into her mouth. Chewing, she offered in a thoughtful, somewhat grouchily defensive rumble, _It's not like I'm giving her a break or anything. She just doesn't _want _to be angry at Starfire—I can't govern her actions when she doesn't want me to do so on some subconscious level. Raven's angry at the world, and therefore I might be able to goad her into destroying it at one point or another—she's angry at herself for being angry at the world, and therefore I can inflict damage here, too. _Fury smiled warningly at Intelligence: a smile of daggers, poison, jagged lightning. The expression faded quickly, however, to one suggesting puzzlement.

Intelligence smiled back. Reaching over, she took Fury's cold hand and enclosed it in both of her own, giving it a quick squeeze. Softly she murmured, _Raven's not angry at Starfire, though, so you can't make her do anything to the girl. _The yellow-cloaked Sentiment released the captured hand, and Fury jerked it back, hiding it beneath her garments suspiciously and grinding her fangs when Intelligence continued, _How's it feel to be out of your league?_

Fury snarled. All four of her eyes gleamed with rage, and the bowl of popcorn went flying in fragments as she slammed a curled fist down into the midst of the buttered confection, whirling to face Intelligence. _I am NOT out of my league! Who do you think you are—my mother? You can't tell me where I am and where I'm not!_

_I think_, Intelligence said, trying to pacify her aggravated counterpart, _that I'm in the same boat as you. After all, Raven's not really being rational right now, is she?_

Raven agreed that she was being everything _but _rational. Swallowing hard, she stiffened as Starfire smiled down at her and lifted a hand to cup the back of her head, her fingers soft against the dark, silken locks.

"Good morning, friend Raven," she murmured, pitching her voice low as though to avoid startling Raven. Raven saw concern in her eyes, following closely by a fleeting fear—Starfire knew she wasn't supposed to be here, and that made Raven feel a little better, at least. Shifting her hand slightly, the Tamaranian tipped her head and voiced next, worry creeping into her soft voice, "You are all right now, yes?"

"All right?" Raven's brow synched in puzzlement and faint indignation. "Of course I'm all right, Star," she affirmed, feeling out of the loop and very much like she'd missed something rather important. "Are you?" And then, as cross as she could possibly sound, given that she really didn't feel angry at Starfire in the least, "Why are you here? In my bed?"

"I am most pleasant," said Starfire, and smiled a relieved smile that was fading fast. She took a soft breath. "I worried for you, Raven. I heard something in the night, and it ran through my ears like… like the nails of the chalkboard," she proclaimed, and looked pleased with herself for having used an Earth idiom. Encouraged by the consistency of Raven's blank stare, she continued, "I searched the tower and found the sound coming from your room. I, ah… I am sorry, Raven, but I believe I have caused your door great injury."

Raven felt her cheeks, which had just begun to cool off again, flare red with embarrassment and horror. She remembered Starfire's mention of a certain noise some odd days before at breakfast, and she'd had a suspicion then that was being confirmed now in ways she'd never thought possible.

"You were crying, I think because of a horrible _shlorvak_," persisted Starfire, and ran her thumb over Raven's knuckles, hoping to comfort the other girl. She only succeeded in nourishing Raven's blush with the motion. "I sought to proceed with the ritual of the giving of comfort, and I sat near you, my friend, and you… uhm. You… embraced me."

Starfire floundered in a sea of useless, half-formed explanations, her gaze locked on Raven's, and the less vocal Titan thought for a moment that Starfire looked very much as though she were drowning. Taking her time to choose what she was to say next very carefully from an assortment of other things that had come to mind, the redhead licked her lips and informed Raven in a quiet, diffident tone, "I did not want to leave you, Raven. You seemed to be in need of me."

Raven stared.

Aside from her occasional skirmish with the rowdy Beast Boy, Raven tended to get on well with her friends in Titans Tower. She and Robin appreciated one another, and Cyborg was the gentlemanly giant in terms of friendship, a protective and friendly big brother and perhaps more if she ever sought to look down that road. She and Beast Boy argued because the changeling, while offering Raven his respect, overstepped the boundaries and tested the limits with which the half-human Titan surrounded her person, preferences, and territory. He rose to the challenge of making her crack a smile, or utter even the faintest of giggles, and he took joy in the rare circumstance when his attempts to get through her thick shell were successful. He also usually understood that most of his attempts were doomed to failure from the start, and that Raven's anger on his part was more to be expected than something about which to be upset.

Starfire did not share this perception. If there was anyone who ever made Raven feel the bite of the guilt imp, it was the redhead. Starfire's spirits wasted away under even the most mild of Raven's glares: her confidence dissolved, her warmth evaporated as steam in the air on a cold January morning, and her words died on her lips, all evidence of her strong spirit draining into the frigid depths of a suddenly unhappy soul. Raven knew her frosty shield disheartened Starfire, a member of a race that functioned by sensing, interpreting, and acting on the emotions of those around them. As such, the most reserved of the Titans made an effort, when she and Starfire were alone or in close quarters, to be as warm to the Tamaranian as her emotions allowed. She enjoyed their shopping trips, their joint meditations (though Starfire usually fell asleep during these, unable to keep her mind occupied with an activity so neutral and silent), and their journeys down the condiments aisle in the local supermarket, where Raven introduced Starfire to the many varieties of mustard, horseradish, and other strong toppings in something like amusement.

There were also times, however, when Starfire's warm and affectionate nature flickered too close to her shield, threatening to melt it, threatening to unleash the flurry of emotions beneath the protective coating. Starfire's smiles, giggles, embraces methodically chiseled away at the buffer Raven kept in place to shelter herself from the world's cruel gaze—and more so, to shelter the world from her own volatile eyes, flickering forebodingly from the shadows beneath the hood of her cloak. Starfire was most often the individual who interrupted one of her many sessions of daily meditation; the Tamaranian's inherent clumsiness, something Raven felt sure she would eventually grow out of, made her every footstep voluble, thunderous, deafening. Her hands were heavy and strong and awkward, and when Starfire tried to hug Raven to celebrate this holiday or that custom, the dark-headed Titan left the encounters wheezing and bruised.

For this reason, Raven had hinted to her friend in the past that she preferred the Tamaranian's company when Starfire's limbs were far from solid surfaces—when Starfire was flying, hovering, drifting in the air. Hands off. No touching.

Within Raven, Fury seethed. _I don't need **anyone**_! she hissed, predictably enraged, and rose in a flurry of crimson robes and lashing shadows.

One of the writhing shadows, proving to be semi-solid, caught Intelligence's glasses and sent them flying. The frail frames landed some odd feet away and shattered on the insubstantial floor; thousands of pseudo-glass fragments sank immediately into the void of Raven's mind, and the frames followed suit. Intelligence, lips thin, folded her hand in the crook of Fury's arm and gave her a jerk. Cutting her somewhat unfocused eyes at the other Sentiment as Fury wobbled, yanked off-balance, she ordered, _Sit your ass down! You're making me mad—and you're ruining the show._

Bristling and grumbling, Fury sank back to the couch. She folded her arms beneath her breasts, shifting only the slightest bit as her cloak readjusted to fit her slender frame; glancing to the side, she sighed and snapped her fingers, summoning a new pair of spectacles for the squinting Sentiment.

_Here_, she muttered through clenched teeth. _Since you want to see the "show"—_and she quirked the fingers of her free hand in the typical motion of bunny ears—_ so damn much._

Intelligence accepted and polished the frames on her cloak, offering the smallest smile of thanks in turn.

_Tamaranians, _Raven thought in a dawning instant of vicious recollection, _are reputed for two things in this galaxy: incredible fertility, and incredible, almost psychic empathy. She heard parts of me crying—she saw what the mirror's supposed to conceal. And if she could hear it—if she could **see **it… I might've killed her in my sleep. _Raven closed her eyes and exhaled shakily, furious with herself, guilt spreading up from the pit of her stomach in nauseating ripples._ Damnit! I should've known better than to start skipping meditation before bed! _She ground her teeth, clenching her fingers so tightly and suddenly that Starfire winced at the prick of nails at her hip, reaching to curve her own tanned, slender digits through her fellow Titan's.

"I am very sorry, Raven," she said in a rush, "but you were so _cold_…"

"I could've hurt you, Star," Raven replied dully, turning her head from the girl as the guilt, the self-hatred, the reproachful queasiness became a throb between her temples. She felt numb all over otherwise, and she reached into herself for the comfort of the stoic mask she usually wore, seeking to smother the rise of roiling emotion that made the metallic taste of bile well in the back of her throat. She found instead her imagination, so often suppressed—it clamped over her senses with all the ferocity of a beartrap, and Raven recoiled in horror as mental images of slaughter coursed through the passages behind her eyes.

Starfire, lying in a nest of crinkled and crumpled sheets on Raven's bed, her eyes blank and her head tipped back, dark blood seeping from the corner of her mouth. Starfire, torn from collarbones to pelvis, hanging halfway through a shattered mirror. Starfire, crushed beneath the bookcase, fingers stretched out helplessly, pleadingly, pale and still and lifeless and—

"Raven! You must _stop_!"

_Warmth_, pressing along her cheeks her jaw her ears her throat, fanning webs of pleasurable heat. Raven, who had squeezed her eyes shut and begun to curl into herself, jerked her head toward the source of comfort, eyes snapping open once more. Starfire was caressing the dark-haired Titan's cheeks with gentle palms, her fingers splayed along Raven's jawline and sliding downward, thumbs curving beneath the elegant, slate-toned chin.

"Star?" Raven breathed, and found herself, against all other instincts, easing forward against the Tamaranian's hands, the images of death and carnage behind her eyes ebbing into brief, strained flickers.

She jerked softly as Starfire slid one hand down along her shoulder, cupped the blade for a moment, and continued, resting the edge of her palm in the small of Raven's back. Splaying her fingers, she supported the other girl effortlessly and turned her, easing her upright to wrap her arm around Raven's slender waist. She drew Raven back into her lap and, after giving the opposing cheek a final caress with a thumb made rough by grasping energy bolts, curled both arms around her friend, tucking her chin without fear or hesitation into the notch of Raven's throat and shoulder.

"You are thinking thoughts of horror and death and bleeding things," said Starfire matter-of-factly. "You are breaking your heart because you think you will cause these things to happen, friend Raven, and it is not so." Raven could feel Starfire's lips moving against her skin, faint but searing; she could feel the breath behind every word, and her stomach lurched, quivered, ached with the sensation. Noticing this, Starfire splayed her hands over Raven's abdomen and continued, her voice slightly vicious, not at all intent on giving up, "It is _not _so! I will not let you proceed with the thinking of these thoughts. They are damaging you—they are making you cry inside, and they are making you cold. I will not let you be cold, Raven!"

Raven felt Starfire breathing, the other Titan's chest pressing against her side and back as she drew in each lungful after soft lungful of air. She felt the press of fingers against her stomach, featherlight and calming and numbering ten, each pad broad and warm and gingerly circling. She felt and heard the Tamaranian's heartbeat, a flutter through flesh and bone and cartilage and two nightgowns—and Raven felt her heart beating back, just as fearful, just as uncertain, knocking against the back door of ribs now in desperate glee because there was, at last, an answering call.

"Azarath…" Starfire began in a low, hopeful murmur after a few moments, shifting her hand to cup Raven's hip encouragingly.

"…Metrion… Zenthos…" Raven adjoined, letting their voices harmonize in the dim light of the room, in the emerald sunrise of Starfire's glowing eyes. The mantra slid in the heat between them, echoing and reverberating in their mouths, against the walls, against the door, sifted through sheets and nightgowns and emotions, smoothing and sanding rough edges into comprehensible surfaces—into comprehensible thoughts. Starfire and Raven stopped as one, letting the final _Zenthos _fade and soak into the shadows at the corners of the room.

They sat together for a while in silence. Within Raven, Fury and Intelligence did the same—and the bowl of popcorn between them was empty save for a few lonely seeds.

"Thanks, Star," Raven murmured at length. Her voice sounded as it was supposed to sound—dry, soft, and almost emotionless. She didn't realize she'd twined fingers with the other girl again until Starfire gave her hand a squeeze, and it was with something like loathing that she pulled away, fingers and body and all, rising to stand at the edge of her bed. The blanket slithered after her, pooling on the floor at her feet, and Starfire moved to stand as well, stretching long, tanned limbs with a soft, kittenish yawn.

When she was finished, she turned to face Raven and placed warm hands on the other Titan's shoulders. "I am glad to be of service, my friend," she murmured. Leaning down, she pressed her lips to the center of Raven's forehead just beneath the crimson jewel, drawing back with an encouraging, tender smile to finish, "May the rest of the day bring you joy."

Raven offered Starfire a noncommittal response, a sound something between a squeak and a rumble, her violet eyes enormous in her pale gray face. She watched her friend withdraw, turn, and slip to the door, giving the touchpad a soft shock to make the barricade _schlup _out of her way. The Tamaranian called another departure to Raven before she disappeared from sight and the door slid closed again, leaving the dark-headed Titan to stand in the darkness of her own room, fingers rising to quiveringly cup glowing red cheeks, lips parted in a stunned, beautiful silence.

_She kissed me, _thought Raven, and before she could stifle it, a smile crept onto her lips, secretive and quiet and sincere. It was gone just as quickly, a camera flash, a shooting star, disappearing over the velvet-dark rim of the world in a flourish of glimmering silver.

She dressed and prepared for the day at a moderate pace, documenting her activities as usual and trying in vain to ignore the increased beat of her heart when she detected the fiery scent of cinnamon mixed in with her sleek lavender locks. She left her room and felt the world waking up—felt the other Titans stirring from dreams, shifting in sheets and groaning in pillows and savagely attacking alarm clocks. Mostly, however, she felt Starfire—she felt the echoing heartbeat in the girl who was, at the moment, searching the rather bare refrigerator of Titans Tower for a bottle of mustard.

Not at all minding Starfire's noises this once, Raven sucked in a soft breath and slowly, slowly stepped to look out over the bay toward the glittering spires and skyscrapers of Jump City, watching the sunlight catch and hold and dazzle every pane of glass on the waterfront—watching the reflection of the redhead in the window, far more beautiful than any sunrise she'd ever seen.

—End

I hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it. Thank you for the suggestions, the comments, the critiques, and the fluffy hats! I'm always on the lookout for more, and as I fully intend to write more Star/Raven fics in the future, every bit of feedback is welcome. Cheers, and happy holidays!

—Bainaku


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